THE PHOTOGRAPHIC JOURNEY - Sailing in Italy ( Part Two )

PART TWO

This is part two of my sailing itinerary from South France, through Italy to Greece.

... It is rather a reflection on time, history and art or a kind of personal revision than a current blog entry. The sail trip took place on late summer 2011. I was then in a different life situation and a different state of mind. At this time I have defined myself as a traveler and independent intellectual, now as a artist. Everything is of course interconnected and nothing is completely new or completely different and this is the point of this new entry. A Revision or an Update of intellectual and artistic believes, habits and values. Belief revision is the process of changing beliefs to take into account a new piece of information and experience. Revision is an almost inevitable process of change of our minds as the time passes. Our believes, habits and values are open to transformation as time passes and new experiences are made ...

THE AEOLIAN ISLANDS

It was a one Day and one Night passage saling from Amalfi, throught the Tyrrhenian Sea to the Aeolian Islands. During the night it was the Stromboli volcano with its eruptions that gave me the feeling of space, time and history. Early in the morning I approached Isola di Salina.

The Aeolian Islands (Italian: Isole Eolie, Sicilian: Ìsuli Eoli, Greek: Αιολίδες Νήσοι, Aiolides Nisoi) are a volcanic archipelago in the Tyrrhenian Sea north of Sicily, named after the demigod of the winds Aeolus.

The largest island is Lipari and the islands are sometimes referred to as the Lipari Islands or Lipari group. The other islands include Vulcano, Salina, Stromboli, Filicudi, Alicudi, Panarea and Basiluzzo.

The present shape of the Aeolian Islands is the result of volcanic activity over a period of 260,000 years. There are two active volcanoes – Stromboli and Vulcano.

The resulting collision has created a volcanic area with ruptures in the Earth's crust with consequent eruptions of lava. The "Aeolian Arc" extends for more than 140 km (87 mi), but the area of geological instability caused by the collision of Africa and Europe is much larger. It includes Sicily, Calabria, and Campania together with Greece and the Aegean islands. ( source: Wiki Aeolian Islands ).

Isola di Salina

Lipari

Lipari ( Sicilian: Lìpari, Latin: Lipara, Ancient Greek: Meligounis or Lipara) is the largest of the Aeolian Islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the northern coast of Sicily, southern Italy; it is also the name of the island's main town and comune, which is administratively part of the Metropolitan City of Messina.

The cloisters

After the Arab Invasions, the island of Lipari remained uninhabited and when the Normans settled there they found only a few villages of Greek speaking inhabitants in the interior. In 1083, Count Roger I invited the Benedictine monks who were well-fitted for the serenity and security of the place, and built a monastery near the castle for them. The Abbot Ambrogio, head of the monks, directed the construction of the Norman cloisters which were completed around 1131 in the reign of Roger II and follow the Clunian Benedictine model. On the original plan, the church faced north and the cloisters south, near the monastery.

After the reconstruction of the church in 1516, the cloister no longer had an important role and was occupied by a cemetery. It was covered over by a langslide during an earthquake and remained hidden for centuries. It has only recently been uncovered, in 1978, by Luigi Pastore who noticed some capitals while investigating the area around the cathedral and immediately informed the Soprintendeze for archaeology and heritage. Today they have been restored and are an important tourist attraction. ( wikipedia )